Citroen Dyane Reviews

1972 Citroen Dyane 6 602 cc from UK and Ireland

Summary:

Faults:

Rust in the floor pan... well most panels really.

General Comments:

A distress purchase in my youth when I needed a group 1 insurance car in order to remain insured after a series of... ahem... shunts.

Bought for eighty quid with 10 months left on what must have been a dodgy MOT. Rotten floor / chassis, which rendered the car scrap at MOT time, but this car launched me onto a series of boxer engined Citroens.

What a laugh - beige body, red door and blue tailgate, so resprayed it myself in desert cam. Stencilled camels on the doors, and tricolours on the boot and bonnet in a faux Foreign Legion look, and had a barrel of laughs - these cars are legends - you can fix them with a knife and fork!! A ten milly ring spanner and a screwdriver is the complete tool kit - Citroen - bring them back please!!

1981 Citroen Dyane 6 602 cc petrol from UK and Ireland

Summary:

The original Smart car!

Faults:

Absolutely nothing. I have replaced the leaky original 28 year old roof though!

General Comments:

This is my third Dyane and it is just as I remember my first two, some 19 years ago. I bought it from an elderly couple in Suffolk in September, where it had been garaged for the last twenty years. She completed the 155 mile trip home faultlessly and has continued to perform beautifully.

Now she is my daily driver and lives outside, hence my replacing the roof. Every day she fires up and drives the 9 mile trip to work, only taking a couple of minutes longer than my previous car, a 2005 Mitsubishi Colt Sport! That had 107 bhp as opposed to the 35bhp my Dyane kicks out.

She can keep up with modern traffic, while sipping on the unleaded at a very leisurely rate, and what car fills up for around twenty pounds these days?? I am not disappointed with my reversion to the Dyane, apart from the fact that I am slightly heavier and wider than I was 19 years ago!

1979 Citroen Dyane 6 petrol from UK and Ireland

Faults:

General Comments:

Ecological, astonishing fuel economy, lively, fun and full of character;

The unique Citroen "trafficlutch" which meant that the manual gearbox behaved like an automatic in stop-start traffic was really special.

Citroen should bring that special clutch back for today's congested roads - a real unique selling point.

The Dyane 6 was an all user-friendly, totally serviceable machine, for example:

When the gearbox finally wore out I bought a spare gearbox from a scrap-yard, lifted engine and gearbox on my own out of the car and replaced the gearbox complete with flywheel in my kitchen, slung it back into the car and it did another 10,000 miles before I got some money and bought a new car.

I have since owned a Ford Escort, Ford Sierra, Ford Sierra Cosworth, Ferrari, Aston Martin, Range Rover, Jaguar XJS, Alfa Romeo Montreal, BMW 325 Hartge, two BMW M6, and others including diesel and petrol turbo Citroens and an aeroplane. I hold none of these vehicles in quite so much affection as the Dyane Six.

Unassuming, practical engineering excellence on a budget. I gave it away for scrap. Seven (!) years later, incredibly, I spotted it parked elsewhere in London where someone was stil getting good daily use out of it, still with the same patch on the canvas roof!

If anyone has a good "trafficlutch" model Dyane Six for sale I am a potential buyer.